Can I share a vintage industrial?
 

Hi everyone

This is my most recent and beloved purchase/rescue... a Model 238 Pfaff Industrial zig-zag (zick-zack!) machine. I've been eyeing the exact same one at me LSMG's shop for months and it had a very dreamy $1200 price tag on it and so all I could do was wish and sigh. Imagine my pure shock when someone listed one on eBay with no reserve!!! With 10 mins to go, the highest bid was $10.

Then, strangely, at the very last second (literally) I was outbid by a massive amount and the machine sold for $530. It was only when I looked at the bidding history that I saw that the highest bidder had the (private) written next to their name. Sure enough, the next day I got a 2nd chance offer to buy it - when I spoke to the seller he explained the top bidder promptly pulled out with some lame excuse and apparently his nickname on eBay was actually "troll" - LOL. Anyway, so the guy said - make me a fair offer and it's yours. So I did, and it is! :D

I think I could have offered him a lot less because he really seemed to have no idea what he was selling, but my heart wasn't in that. I gave him what I could afford, and sight unseen it seemed pretty fair. Seems even more fair now that I've had to clean it!!!!

I wish I could find out the year of manufacture - I asked my LSMG and he said he was servicing them as an apprentice in the early 60's, so it is definitely vintage! Found that the timing was a little off and it was skipping stitches, but very pleased to say that it's all in perfectly gorgeous working order now and I'm all fired up to use it. Here it is (this is the 'after' photo):

[ATTACH=CONFIG]444156[/ATTACH]

Those old Pfaff industrial machines are very nice to use. I used one with way too heavy canvas - I bent the needle bar.

Really??? How heavy are we talking? That's quite an achievement Miriam! Not that I'm guessing I'll be putting it to the heavy canvas test... however, the guy I bought it from did use it to make blinds and it was full of all this melted PVC/latex stuff that was horrible to clean out. LSMG said that's what happens when you sew it at high speeds. But he also said he thought they were bulletproof - I'll have to tell him your bent needlebar story ;)

I think I did a 50 X 30 ft awning and a few things like that - way too much weight. I can't remember if that thing was before or after that. I went through a few machines.

That just makes me think you are awesome!! LOL

I finally got a really old Singer walking foot. I went to Fort Knox and found the museum - in there they had microfilm patterns and blue prints of everything under the sun. I got blueprints for a wall tent and made two - the tents had awnings over the tents and one between the tents. The material was the old green canvac. I'll never do it again. NEVER. That material was like sewing on a crayon. I shook the whole time I sewed. I don't know it was the chemical or the insulation in the barn. The tents turned out well enough that two retired vets looked them over and decided that they were remarkably well preserved old tents. I've never seen the tents set up. It's been 10 or 12 years ago. The blue print was more or less a suggestion - I still had a lot of drafting to get it to come out right. Those tents had grommets everywhere. The sides of the tents rolled up. In the South Pacific that green canvas would get rather hot.... With following the blue print there wasn't a scrap left over when I was done. I'm thinking it was about 300 yards of canvac material for all of it.

I was just going to say that baby looks like it can handle anything you throw at it -- but guess even the sturdiest machines have their limits!

Awesome machine!!!

That looks like a great machine. Is it a straight stitch
?

Which begs the question...is there a good medium industrial that does both straight and ZZ?